Ian Harris - The Outsider Art of Ian Frederick Harris

Every home should have a piece of original art hanging on the wall

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that every, (that’s EVERY), home should have a piece of original art hanging on the wall.

And the reason I so adamant in that view is simple.

EVERYONE IS AN INDIVIDUAL. WE ARE NOT SHEEP.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, what with social media and the desperate FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), SHEEP are what we are in great danger of becoming. The need to express ourselves, the need to tell our community WHO WE ARE has become a matter of great urgency. Otherwise, we will succumb.

We will find ourselves sinking into the morass that is the unthinking masses.

The mass that allows so-called Public Figures (politicians, influencers and the like) to do the thinking for us. We will fall in the unhealthy grasp of those that tell us what to like, what to buy and even how to judge our fellow men and woman.

To own an original art may seem like a minor thing but is one important way of speaking out, a way of showing your individuality. It is a STATEMENT. And that statement says loud and clear.

I/We have it hanging in our house because it means something to us.

If you think hanging a tattered flag from a lamppost is a statement, then I feel sorry for you, because that is something someone told you to do. Not only that, but they also told you what it is meant to mean.

A piece of original art that YOU chose…now that’s thinking for yourself.

An attempt at explaining my artwork.

An attempt at explaining my artwork.

I work at the point where certainty gives way to surprise.

My paintings are built through layers of acrylic, oil, and mixed media, but they’re really about something more open-ended than technique alone: the feeling of discovery. I’m drawn to work that changes as you spend time with it — images that reveal themselves slowly, where color, texture, and gesture carry as much meaning as any obvious subject.

I don’t set out to control every outcome. Instead, I let the painting lead, responding to what appears on the surface and allowing the work to develop intuitively. That process gives each piece its own energy, its own sense of tension, and its own quiet surprise. Sometimes the result leans abstract, sometimes it suggests a figure, a landscape, or a memory, but I prefer to leave room for interpretation. I want the viewer to bring their own experience to the work.

A lot of my paintings live in contrast: calm and unrest, clarity and ambiguity, structure and instinct. That balance reflects how I see the world — layered, shifting, and full of things that can’t be explained too neatly. I’m interested in how art can hold more than one emotion at once, and how a piece can feel both personal and open at the same time.

If my work resonates with you, I hope it’s because it invites you to pause, look a little longer, and find your own way in.

The power of the arts

If I see yet another post that neglects the power of the arts and insultingly describes an artist’s work as something ‘my two-year-old could do’, I’m going to throw an almighty fit and might possibly even scream.

The moronic ‘insight’ that these idiots have, boils down to nothing more than using the same judgement they would use whilst looking at a photograph. They need a good copy for it to be valid. If it doesn’t look like the ‘real thing’ then there’s something ‘wrong’.

However, no matter loud my protest, the art world is bigger than my anger at the twats. It is such a wonderful place that it can take numb nuts criticism and let them off with a mild scolding, because it knows that the beauty in art is truly in the ‘eye of the beholder.’

I’m loath to admit it but the twats have to be forgiven for their immature judgements, for they have not yet learnt to look. The sad fact being that no-one bothered to take the time to teach them to see. And until the day someone does, they will stay forever blind. Education has always been the key.

Educational establishments (with some notable and rare exceptions) have never in my opinion, taken the power of the arts and the language it speaks, seriously.

The power of the arts (all of them) to offer a resting/healing place, a time out, a retreat, has always been neglected except sadly, by those who can afford to do it for themselves and who do so, usually late in life.

It’s interesting to note that attempts to take school children out of their usual environments to somewhere/something that might jolt them into awareness of a bigger world usually revolves around nature (which is great) but hardly ever concerns the arts which is brain-achingly sad because, we are, I believe, all artists and all able to partake, explore and discover.

Ian.

Why I paint.

Somebody asked me the other day why I paint and it didn’t take me that long to provide an honest answer. Simple.

I paint because it keeps me sane (ish).

For a few hours I’m away with the fairies. My head is in the clouds; my breath is soft and low and my heartbeat regular, and that includes the moments I spend wondering what the hell I’m going to put down on canvas.

In short, painting for me is a healing process that someone or something else (it can’t be me, can it?) is in charge of. It is outside of me.

If you’re wondering where and when and if my business brain kicks in, again, in all honesty, the will to make a profit from my work is way, way down the line. Keeping a noisy brain occupied by something restful and all-consuming even if for an hour or two is my priority. Making money from the peace that surrounds me is, when it happens (rarely), is a bonus.

From this; An Orc To that; yes, it is me

Author: Ian Harris

Every home should have a piece of original art hanging on the wall

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An attempt at explaining my artwork.

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The power of the arts

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Why I paint.

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